Laziness in today's students.

In my time as a teacher, I often saw the most surprising laziness in students. Today, one memory came to mind.

There was a student in my class, from Mongolia, who liked, at times, to use the catchphrase: "I'm lazy." to explain why he wouldn't do something. I heard it a little too often from him. He was an unusual boy: very charming in his own way, with an engaging demeanour. He had big dreams for himself but utterly lacked the will to work at them. I didn't see him attaining any of those dreams unless he changed his ways.

One day, I wrote an essay title for the students on the board. It wasn't a long task, really: I just wanted them to write something in the class on a topic that I thought would interest them, to give me something to feedback on their grammar.

Now, my Mongolian student was somewhat short-sighted. He squinted up at the board, from his customary seat at the back of the classroom - then raised his hand and gestured me over to him.

As I drew near, he offered me his pen which, reflexively, I took in hand. Then he pointed at the board and spoke: "Write that, here." he said, presumptuously, nodding at his notebook.

I stood there, pen in hand, with astonishment on my face. This young man was too lazy to walk to the front of the classroom to read the board - but wanted me to write the essay title, again, in his own notebook, especially for him.

He didn't get anywhere. "You are lazy...now go to the front of the classroom where you can see it better."

He looked somewhat surprised at this, but rose slowly from his seat and slouched to the front of the class where he wrote down the title. Then he slouched back to the back of the classroom.

Forty-five minutes later, I gauged that all should have finished the task and asked them each, in turn, to stand and read their work out to the class (for these were second language speakers and the challenge of public speech was good for them).

When it came to the Mongolian boy's turn, he just shrugged: "I haven't done it."

I walked over to him and looked down at his notebook. He sure was lazy, as he himself noted. There on the page was the essay title - and nothing else. He hadn't even written one word. I said nothing but turned to the next student. Sometimes, you have to know when it is pointless to pursue a student. This one did as little as possible, all the time - and there was little chance of changing that.

There are other students like that Mongolian boy. I just thought his particular story was interesting in the way he seemed to think he was entitled to special treatment - but did nothing to deserve it. All the students like him share a common mindset: that the world owes them a living and that success is theirs without effort. However, I think that all of them are going to be rather surprised at what reality has in store for them. The world doesn't tend to reward too highly those who make no effort to strive within it.

It would be interesting to see how the Mongolian boy's dreams turn out. However, I doubt that I will ever get to know.

The funny thing about him is that Genghis Khan is his great hero - yet it never seems to occur to him that Genghis Khan's particular success came at great personal effort his whole life long. It didn't just happen.

How many other young people think that success just happens - and that it is theirs for the taking, without ever trying hard to get it?

If you have any revealing tales, please share them in the comments. Thanks.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and seven months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, five years exactly, and Tiarnan, twenty-eight months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, wunderkind, wonderkind, genio, гений ребенок prodigy, genie, μεγαλοφυία θαύμα παιδιών, bambino, kind.

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